Modern organization is founded on the
notion of social contract between the state and its citizens.
The equality of citizenship has created a basis for equal
participation of all the citizens in the governance process
in which the state is expected to command sovereignty and
to provide a good life by means of preserving enduring positive
values that enhance liberty, order and justice in society.
How does the sovereignty of the state coincide with the
sovereignty of people? The logic of our constitutional democracy
has established the essential arguments for a system of
civic rights and duties as well as the scope for rational
change.

These ideals provides nutrients to erect
the even boundary between the state class and different
sets of citizens, fosters their education and acculturation
to civic spirits, prepares them for citizenship responsibility
and builds their civic character. In a multi-cultural society
like Nepal, active engagement of citizens in the entire
web of social and economic associations that dot the democratic
landscape is crucial for national integration. Civic education
constitutes a relation of politics to people's life and
celebrates a new regime of equality and brotherhood as opposed
to petty infantilism and arrogant juvenility.

Critical debates on civic rights and duties
can be expected to contribute to strengthening the bedrock
of citizens' attachments with the polity and the state and
build a social and national consensus for policy coherence
and concertation. It helps the revival of the national spirit.
A few questions can thus be constructed that might be pertinent
for intellectual drill:

How can the concepts underlined in
the structural and normative foundations of the Constitution
of the Kingdom of Nepal 1990, such as directive principles,
separation of power, checks and balances, fundamental
rights, social justice, welfare state, guarantee human
security for all the citizens?

Are the globalization and economic
liberalization policies of the government consistent with
these goals? It is often argued that democratic space
exists within the nation-state. If citizens lose control
over their national economic, social and political matters
to global forces, the civic order of democracy shrinks
deeper and deeper into the abyss. This brings an authority
crisis for the government and loyalty patterns to the
state, political parties, parliament and the institution
of governance. In such a condition, how can democratic
polity be effectively institutionalized in Nepal?

Is it possible for the institutions
of governance to remain inclusive when the vision of rebuilding
the Nepali nation faces four crucial challenges: alleviating
poverty, ending social exclusion, combating political
alienation and managing the post-modern form of popular
ecological, gender, human rights, civil society and social
movements which are struggling outside the political space
for equality and equity?

How can democracy serve as a legitimizing
instrument of national coherence in both domestic and
foreign policy matters and provide the citizens a shared
collective identity?

A live discourse is, therefore, needed
on how our democratic institutions have imbibed civil liberties
which inspired the democratic struggle while out state protects
the heritage of our syncretic culture and equips the citizens
with the power to shape and reshape the vision of democracy
that they and their institutional partners, such as political
parties, media, civil society and a host of associations,
often reconstitute.

The luxury of democracy becomes dull and
unresponsive if democratic discourses freeze in the public
mind leaving the leadership free to interpret only those
what they see and believe. A culture of silence is the fetal
sign of democratic deficit. What are the fundamental values
of citizenship, besides fundamental rights and duties? Citizenship
begins with commitment to and respect for sovereignty and
territorial integrity, national anthem, national flag and
social harmony in a spirit of brotherhood among all the
people of the nation irrespective of religious, racial,
linguistic, class, caste and gender diversities. If the
values of citizenship are deeply internalized by the people,
social conflicts are largely undermined and people take
more personal responsibility for what is happening in their
family, community, nation and the state.

A radical reconstitution of citizenship
is, therefore, required to make democracy functional which
will also enable them to select the most workable of the
choices that their polity offers to them and constantly
protects their power of thinking, working and creating everything
the nation lives by. Governance cannot be explained merely
in terms of rational self-interest as many utilitarians
believe. It destroys the ethical basis of democracy, weakens
their political identification and increases citizens' responsibility
without devolving power and authority to them.
One has, therefore, to find a solution to the problem of
what is to be done in the case of a clash between political
rationality of democracy in the long-term perspective (the
needs of citizens to survive and develop according to their
own ideas, priorities and decentralized governance) and
the economic rationality of the market in a short-term sense
(exchange, efficiency and competition of interest relations
and structures).

If ethical values that glue the social
sectors of society are broken, all that is left to political
power cannot represent broad majorities and the power of
the leadership becomes disproportionate to their representativeness.
In this situation, how can the state ensure regulatory conditions
that are acceptable to the majority of citizens? Critical
discourse are, therefore, needed to situate citizens' interests
to the realities of power and provide them cognitive services
enabling them to judge the performance of their leaders
on the basis of value criteria characteristic of good governance.

Citizens also need a multitude of stable
institutions to ensure general equilibrium in the polity.
These institutions are particularly valuable to bind all
the members together, even the minorities and marginalized,
for the national purpose. Social trust and concern for fellow
citizens help those who are lacking something fundamental
for their survival and a dignified life. Critical discourse
on this haunts the voice reduced to silence by means of
manipulative practices, misinformation, and ill-rationalization
and evokes all of those intangible values and beliefs upon
which democracy is grounded.

The duty of democratic leadership is to
protect the weakest members of society, entitle them to
their inalienable rights and equal opportunities of education,
and economic and political participation. If rights of citizens
remain unenforceable like party manifestoes, the vision
of the society envisaged in our constitution becomes a mere
utopian imagination in which the horizon of popular hope
and aspiration appears beyond reach and, consequently, rationalization
of life-world suffers.

The crucial task ahead for our polity
concerns with the quest of bridging this growing hiatus
in the words and deeds of our leaders and saving our polity
from its performance crisis. The art of politics must be
utilized to exercise the power of the public for synergy
of good governance--that is just, transparent and accountable
to a sovereign people. It is precisely the orientation of
social actors to public interest that makes democratic stability
both possible and achievable. Proper civic education helps
in reforming our political culture, strengthening our institutions
and articulating democratic life of the public.